Can't book on Cathay Pacific because it needs "Government Approval"

Question

While planning for end of year vacations, I found a very good set of flights on Google Flights to go from HND to DPS via HKG with CX. However, after confirming the fare, I get the following quite unhelpful error page:

I then tried on a different browser, and also on a different computer, but I got the same results.

I thought this was because I went through Google Flights. So instead I try to find the same flight directly from CX's website, but I can't find the exact flights. Maybe that is because the routing includes a 19 hour layover in HKG. I only found routings with much shorter layovers (but much more expensive).

After trying a couple of times and getting the same result, I tried calling CX to book over the phone. They found the routing I asked for, but told me I cannot book because "this routing and dates requires government approval". They didn't explain what this meant, or even which government approval is required.

Notice that up to this point, I haven't given my name, nationality or other personal details. This is an issue with the routing/dates, not anything specific to me (I hope).

I've booked dozens, if not more than one hundred flights in my lifetime, and this is the first time I hear about government approval required for booking a flight.

Does anybody know what this issue is, how to resolve it, or how to avoid this issue?

It seems like Expedia and Flight Network show me the route and allow me to purchase it, but I don't think it's a very good idea to do so.

Update

Cathay's website continues giving issues. Even if I start a search directly from Cathay's website, and after giving pax details and payment information, at the very last step, the website shows a blank page.

That said, I tried the same route today, and now I do get a real error message. It's not really helpful anyways though:

If you're interested in the details, this is the routing I was trying to do:

• Book as return flight, not multi-city
• Depart Dec 23 2024
  • CX 543 HND-HKG 10:10 14:30
  • (19:30 layover in HKG)
  • CX 785 HKG-DPS 10:00+1 15:10+1
• Return Dec 30 2024
  • CX 784 DPS-HKG 16:10 21:20
  • (19:05 layover in HKG)
  • CX 542 HKG-HND 16:25+1 21:15+1
• 2 adults 2 children
• Fares according to Google Flights:
  • 378960 JPY on Cathay Pacific - Get error message; can't book
  • 378960 JPY on Expedia - Seems fine
  • 352402 JPY on Flightnetwork - Seems fine

I also searched all four flights on Flightaware, and all of them have been operating for at least last week -- none of these seem to be new flights with tentative schedules, which seem to be the ones most affected by "government approval".

Regardless, since these flights don't seem to be bookable, and I think it's too risky to try to book on a third party website, I changed my plans and will be going to a completely different destination with a different airline.

Answer 1

In the context of flights, "[subject to] government approval" means that an airline has announced that it intends to fly a certain route, but it has not received the necessary approvals from both sides to be able to actually commence flying. See What does Flight Pending Government Approval mean? for more detail.

Since approvals are rarely rejected, airlines can and do sometimes start taking bookings for these flights before the approval comes through. However, in your specific case, this is completely nonsensical as a reason not to allow you to book this specific itinerary: as other answers have pointed out, the flights operate already so obviously the necessary approvals have been granted, and even the specific itinerary can be booked on different websites, meaning it's not a case of you hitting some obscure seat cap or expiry date in the approval etc.

For what it's worth, it's not unknown of for official websites to struggle with booking flights you can get elsewhere, especially if there's a long layover involved, I had very similar issues with China Airlines last year. I am surprised even their call center couldn't make the booking for you though.

Answer 2

This appears to be a bug on the CX's own website.

I reproduced the problems using the date of Feb 7 to Feb 12 with the flights CX543/CX785 outbound and CX784/CX548 inbound.

I have verified

1. The itinerary errors out on CX website
2. The itinerary is bookable on Booking.com without problem
3. You can buy the exact same flights on CX website as two separate round trip tickets.

That means there is nothing wrong with the flights or the specific itinerary themselves.

"this routing and dates requires government approval"

That seems highly unlikely. What governmental approval would be required for CX to sell on their own website one of their own products that's readily available through a different vendor already? Chances are the agent had no clue what the problem was.

Your options:

1. Wait a few days and try again
2. Call again and be more persistent. "How come I can book this on Expedia?" or "I prefer booking with you instead of Expedia. How do you suggest I proceed. Why can I buy your ticket from Expedia but not from you?"
3. Look at alternatives. For the dates I looked at, this was around US$670. There were plenty of other options in this price range including other options from CX

Answer 3

The error message is a placeholder for the actual error message. Looks like there is a bug on the booking website's translation tables that got hit by your search (maybe a missing translation string).

Yes, the message is not useful to you but an indication for the people maintaining the site where to look for the problem. Ideally end users should never see such messages, and a generic "something went wrong, please contact XXXXX and notify them of this error" should be displayed instead.

Mark already answered the question about the booking needing government approval: the flight route probably takes it over a currently very hot area where war may break out at any moment. It's not your booking per se that needs approval most likely but the entire flight (unless the airline decides to reroute it, which they may end up doing). This fact may well be the reason for the cryptic error message on the 3rd party booking site, such rare things are easy to forget to implement in translation tables and even easier to be tested for when the software is going through quality control.